These people began calling a mere month or two after a Debt Consolidation company told me to stop paying my debts and allow them to snowball so I could receive assistance from either Debt Consolidation or a bankruptcy lawyer (as I mentioned in my other report here).
I hung up on these people several times, because they wouldnt tell me who they were, what company they were representing, and were making bizarre demands of large sums of money per month. I had no clue who they were at all, and I am not agreeing to ANYthing from an unknown caller. Now I listed the 1-800 number here, BUT they called originally from a (904) or a local number for me. When I typed in the phone number into a search engine they were I think it said in Jacksonville.
Then nothing for a couple more months. Next thing I know I get a phone call from an irate sounding woman, I work in a retail setting so at first I thought "Oh my God, did a product we sell give her problems or did she have poor customer service?" She mentioned me by name, so I figured she may be one of our regulars but I didnt recognize her voice. She then goes into rapid fire saying she was with BCR I owed them a large sum of money and I needed to start paying them NOW! I told her I cannot accept collection calls at work, please call me at a specific time either before or after my work and I would speak to her then. She then yells she can call me at any time, place or way she wants and I have to accept it. I tell her this is not allowed at my work, and that my boss is getting upset with me for being on a phone call of this nature. She tells me thats too bad, I have to stay on the line if I didnt want to be marked as refusal to pay.
My boss took the phone from me, and told her not to call here during work hours and hung up. The phone rings again, and the woman is back seething that I WILL NEVER EVER put my friends on the phone again to hide from BCR. It sounded almost like she was modifying the Spanish Inquisition sketch from Monty Python and inserting BCR. I didnt know whether to yell myself or laugh and hang up. I told her it was in fact my boss and she was calling me at work, I would be hanging up right now since I wanted to keep my job. She screamed out something as I hung up, dont exactly know what... But since my ear was nowhere near the receiver and I could hear her, that says to me she was screaming.
She does call back about 30 minutes later as I am leaving work (so we are sitting at 6:30pm my time that day), and starts in to how I need to pay I need to pay I need to pay, on and on, not letting me get a word in at all. I told her that I am driving right now, and that her angry tone will not be tolerated and I will hang up if she does not stop yelling all pee & vinegar (YES I censored that phrase on the phone too). She told me if I didnt stay on the line things were going to get very bad for me and my credit score will never again be good. A THREAT! Fine, I stay on the line and she makes demands of a few hundred dollars a month. I cannot afford that, I regularly had (during this time) only about $100 to my name after my other bills (phone, car insurance, food, gas for my car). She says something to the effect of YEAH RIGHT.
I hang up after her statement. I return to my mother's home and tell her what was going on, she offered to take the phone because by this time I am spitting tacks myself. I tell her if the lady calls again, I will hand the phone over to her if things get bad. And she does in fact call again, same pee & vinegar attitude. She continues with threats that I am going to have bad credit for life, that I could never even think of declaring bankruptcy, that I would never get a new car (who says I needed a new car at the time? I SURE DIDNT!), or a home (OUCH! At the time I was still single and living at home with my parents quite peacefully. So no need for a home yet) ever. Who is this? I ask thinking its a prank call after all this. She wont give me her name just reiterates a few times that she is with BCR. Beeeeee Ceeeee RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Childish much? I go to hang up and she says in a VERY smarmy voice "Fine. You hang up again and you will be marked down as refusal to pay" I then fire back that it is not because I won't pay, its because I cannot pay. This banter gets so escalated and heated my mom and brother are soon at my bedroom door wanting to know if either of them can trade spots with me. I wave them off and continue. She gets so nasty, she is making me violently upset now. And next thing I know I am on the floor. My mom runs in and takes the phone telling whoever that was that what they did was uncalled for who the f* is this (yes my mom did swear at them but I had a massive anxiety attack - I DONT get those! -and fell on the floor because I had become extremely light headed from all the yelling and screaming this woman provoked). Again the woman called back seething that I WILL NEVER PUT MY FRIENDS ON THE PHONE WHEN TALKING TO HER. A - *CLICK* I hang up on her.
Next day AT MY WORK, a man calls looking for me. A polite man, and at first my coworkers thought it was a customer who knew me by name. So I get on the phone, and nope he's from this BCR too. He says he is this woman's manager, and knew there was an altercation of sorts yesterday. He explains the situation, which card it was from, and if I could make a 3 month agreement to pay $80. I agree on the condition that the payment could be moved back to be in time with the card's original due date so I didnt get late charges. He assures me that there would be no late charges ever. And that in 3 months a person from the office would call and see if I wanted to continue this agreement. Fine I agreed to it. And 3 months later as promised they call back, sounds like the evil woman from before but highly restrained. I agree for 3 months more. But things would be tough because I became ill and had to pay money to see a doctor. She said that since I agreed it would still come out. Fine, whatever I would just bounce checks if that was the case.
He says I should never have to bounce checks with all the money I make. UM WHAT? He goes on to say, ma'am since you are a registered Pharmacist with your company you should easily make enough to have never gotten INTO this debt in the first place. "What does it say for my job?" I ask, "Pharmacist, registered" he responds back. What imbecile put that in the system I ask back, I am merely a pharmacy technician and just got that title not too long before this. We do not make big bucks at ALL. The interns don't even make that much and they are training to be Pharmacists. "No ma'am it says here you ARE a PHARMACIST, registered." Well your records are wrong, and if you dont blow up and go psycho and think I am lying, here. I put the second in command pharmacist on the phone (sadly we DO sound alike on the phone so this was hard), she gave my information of my status in the company, and that I have not now nor ever been a pharmacist there and didnt have the credentials to be hired as a pharmacist. The man seemed to accept it, and asks why I would have put my job title down as pharmacist when I wasnt, that was fraud. I told him I never told anyone anything about job title, because in for my two credit cards I was a gymnastics instructor at the time making $5 an hour 20-22 hours a week when I got those cards. Then I was out of work for a year due to a severe injury, then I worked for a fast food chain for 3 years for not too much more than what I made as a coach. And now I was here as a Pharm tech, who was not yet nationally certified so I was limited in job opportunities. He seemed accepting of this. I went on to suggest that that woman was in so much of a huff, that maybe she typed my job title as pharmacist when she heard the name of my company I worked for. He said that was possible and he spoke to her, and would speak to her again about her behavior.
Around the end of the year 2008 I get a notice from Washington Mutual (the semi original card, Providian was really the card originator) saying I had missed several payments, please send them ASAP, thank you. I called BCR at the local number, and they have no clue what is going on. They took the money out, it was evident by my bank account that the $80 had been taken out each month as agreed... But the original creditor had seen no payments. Weird huh? The man protested anything fishy going on, but the people who usually work on my account arent here today, can you call back the next day? Um, no. Get this fixed.
Washington Mutual changes hands this time to Chase. And I get a letter stating this is the case. Followed by my first paper bill from that credit card number in AGES! And isnt it interesting a late charge follows the $80? I had TOLD them a long time ago that this would happen with the date they selected to withdraw money from my account. I called them to let them know this, and they again denied that this was a real situation.
Then about February or March I began getting a ton of calls from a different bunch of 904 numbers. I had let them go to the machine because I didnt recognize them, and I was mostly at work and they also came in after 9pm my time (which since it was a local area code it was their time zone too!). A few left messages regarding BCR. Then the 904-297 blah blah blah number kept calling and hanging up. I should print out my old cell phone call records. Its A RIDICULOUS amount of calls per month. I hit reject on my phone since my phone company doesnt really set up blocked phone numbers. Its either block all calls or block none. Finally around April I HAVE HAD ENOUGH of the CONTINUAL calls at all hours of the day and night.
Hello this is so and so from BCR, you are late on your payments and there has been a significant increase in the monthly bill because of YOUR lack of payment. UMMM I HAD OK'd $80 a month, and I DID tell them that that leaves me with very little money in the bank each month. They got all mad because I had insufficient funds a couple times. I did not hide the fact that I do not have a great amount of money. But money stopped coming out of my bank back in February. He now says I MUST give them $230 per month for the next 6 months. I need the ok, I need the ok now ma'am. Sounded like the man from before. I explain that the last $80 overdrafted and I am in not too much better shape. That I was pregnant now, and chose to buy food instead of paying a card that should have already had $80 sent to it. He YELLS saying I AM NEVER TO BRING MY UNBORN CHILD INTO THIS CONVERSATION OR IN FUTURE CONVERSATIONS WITH BCR EMPLOYEES! YOUR KID IS NOT TO BLAME FOR ITS MOMMY'S LOUSY SPENDING HABITS!"
Lousy spending habits??? I used the cards for: car repairs, hospital bills, gasoline for my car, occasional assistance with my parent's bills since I was staying at their home rent free, fees for the dance school I was in and the competitions they had entered me in, school bills (were a HUGE part of my credit card debt, especially when I had to abruptly pay out of pockets for classes when the school took my financial aid away saying my grades were great but I had too many credit hours to my name and if I didnt pay for classes immediately I would be dropped... Yet another place I wrote to with issues), parking decals for my school. Occasionally yes, I would pay for a Christmas gift or a gift during Easter or for a child's birthday (my nieces). I admit to the occasional gift purchase. But mostly it was school, work, dance school, hospital bills, gas mileage, paying bills, paying my mom's household bills in lieu of rent. HOW ARE THESE LOUSY? And a collector or creditor should not be making decisions on what is lousy or not, and most assuredly should not be accusing a consumer of having lousy habits. I believe the highly overused phrase amonst the teenaged age bracket is (but is effective in this kind of situation): "YOU DONT KNOW ME!"
I hung up on him, and they went back to calling me at work. They called again from the 1-800 number listed here, and I asked to talk to a manager or supervisor and she transfers me back to the rude man who says my spending habits are lousy. I hang up and call the 1-800 number and asked NOT to be transferred back to that man. Hold please. And back I was to the guy from the (904)-287 number. Whereupon he told me that I could not escape them. Umm, are we once again inserting BCR in place of "Spanish Inquisition" from the Monty Python sketches? WHAT IS THIS STUFF???
I took my (now) mother in law's advice and when those people called back as I knew they inevitibly would. I told them I would ONLY speak to the credit card company. To which I was told "Try if you feel like it, they will only send you right back to ME!" The sarcasm couldnt have possibly been thicker if they tried. I hung up, and from then on out hit reject when I saw the number ringing in. And resorted to leaving a message stating that "If you are from BCR hang up now, I will NOT be returning your phone calls. However if you are a friend or family member feel free to leave a message". These people even (combined with a law offices of... Tied to this card, and another law offices of -the one I have already reported here) called me a few times during the time I was in labor with my daughter. I needed to have my phone on to call family & friends, but they wouldnt stop calling. So I had family answer the phone for me, and hit reject if it was and then I listed the phone numbers that have been harrassing me.
I OWE NO MONEY TO THESE people. And like the other report here, I have asked the cards to settle. But no one seems to respond. I hope something can be done about these maniacs to make it so other consumers out their can actually get rest at night, work during the day and get to have a peaceful family dinner FOR ONCE!!
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